In a new ITIF report, How IT Can Enable 21st Century Schools Tim McDonald and Ted Kolderie of the Education|Evolving, discuss why the existing school reform movement has stalled and how information technology (including computers, software and communications) can enable the emergence of fundamentally new kinds of schools

This blog post reviews findings of a recent academic study on the low numbers of women in advanced mathematics programs, citing a need “to make math cool again” to spur U.S. competitiveness, because now doing mathematics for fun is “deemed uncool within the social context of USA middle and high schools…and can lead to social ostracism.”

See video and presentation slides from recent ITIF Forum, featuring Carnegie Melon Professor Bill Hefley, editor of the new book Service Science, Management and Engineering: Education for the 21st Century. Dr. Hefley makes the case that it is time to bring the same scientific rigor to services that has long been applied to manufacturing.

American competitiveness in the innovation-driven global economy has become a subject of intense concern, with many pointing to the shortage of well-trained American scientists, technicians, engineers, and mathematicians (STEM). Amid the proliferation of policy proposals to address the problem, however, one critical component has been largely overlooked: the role of specialty math and science high schools. In a new report, ITIF argues that such schools graduate deeply knowledgeable and passionate students of science and math who are more likely to pursue these fields in college and beyond. As a result, funding the expansion of specialty science and math schools must be an important part of any solution to the STEM challenge. The report recommends taking steps to triple enrollment in math and science high schools to reach 140,000 by 2012.